Public Funding for Chingford Fruit Limited

This project brings together the University of Leeds and Grantham Institute with commercial developers from BioCarbon Tracker and ESRI UK to provide Sainsbury’s with insights into site-specific, multi-parameter environmental risk profiles, both for now and for future forecasting. Risk profiles will combine three categories of data: multiple layers of geospatial data for environmental conditions; combined with crop models and production conditions (to predict performance); and linked to corporate data (such as supplier locations, supply chains, procurement volumes). Outputs from geoprocess models will indicate risks - by type and location - that affect product quality, availability or cost and allow model-based analysis of sustainability and risk. Within the project, ArcGIS Online will be used to share findings with Sainsbury’s suppliers for specific sites, which will be validated with growers’ direct experiences. The development of this system will provide insights to Sainsbury’s and its vast network of suppliers to make them more competitive in the global market. Insights will ultimately inform investment decisions and contractual arrangements to shape supply chains of the future.

The processing of food materials for the consumer market results a variety of surplus or waste streams, which currently have low value uses, for example for animal feed, or for anerobic digestion. The project will focus on the innovative recovery and transformation of wet perishable process streams, such as peel, stalk, grain, and fruit waste, into higher value functional and textural ingredients for incorporation into food products. Outcomes will demostrate exploitation rather than simple management of food waste, of strategic importance for security of food supply, also delivering direct commercial benefit. Technological solutions will be developed for stabilisation and manipulation of biproduct materials frok key selected feedstocks, supported by a consortium with synergistic skills, representing the full supply chain.Investigations will involve innovative coupling of process steps and novel combination of transformed materials from different sources.